


I - Medicine

by Arcanda



Series: The Nanje Series [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Assisted Suicide, Clexa, Costia backstory, Early season 3, Emotional Baggage, F/F, Family, Gen, Healer Clarke, Heda Mama, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lexa Lives, Lexa backstory, Lexa's mom, Major Original Character(s), Nanje, One Shot, Oneshot, Original Character(s), Protective Lexa, Series, Tortured Romance, Wanheda Angst, War Leader Issues, wanheda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6068911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcanda/pseuds/Arcanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What was that?" Clarke said with an angry scowl. "What aren't you telling me?"<br/>"Nothing important." Lexa swallowed. "It's personal."<br/>"Seriously?" Clarke's eyes flashed. "You want me to trust you, after everything you did-and THAT'S your tactic?"<br/>Lexa's chin tucked, still rigid. Her eyes darted away. "My mother is dying."<br/><br/>(Clexa. Oneshot series. Polis reunion AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> **Just a oneshot I've been working on. Takes place shortly after a Clarke & Lexa reunion in Polis. Rated M for graphic references (not sexual). Trigger warning: for graphic reference to anecdotal violence/rape/torture, and suicidal sub-theme. This is primarily anecdotal drama, but consider it rated 'Game of Thrones' to be safe. Feedback and signs you've been through this way and did like it are always, of course, appreciated.**
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> **EDIT: Oops...I slipped and made this into a series.**

** —X— **

 

 

It was the third time she'd seen a guard pull Lexa aside and mutter something into her ear, and the second they were interrupted.

"What was that?" Clarke said with a scowl, her chin jerking in the direction the guard had just disappeared. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing important." Lexa was still level and composed, though in Clarke's presence, the practiced hardness of the Commander had never fully returned to her eyes. She swallowed. "It's personal."

There was a pause, and then, "Seriously?" Clarke's eyes flashed and she took a step toward her across the room. "A second ago you were trying to convince me your 'personal' feelings even remotely matter—now in the same breath that whatever you're lying to me about doesn't? You want me to trust you, after everything you did: and _that's_ your tactic?" She laughed ruefully. "What is going on," she demanded. She wasn't about to stand there captive against her will in The Capitol, and be treated like a child, while Lexa found a way to grovel for her help in her off-time from secret, tactical exploits.

Lexa's chin tucked, still rigid. Her eyes darted away. "My mother is dying."

Clarke faltered, the steam knocked out of her.

Lexa's eyes stayed glued to the corner of her vision at the wall, anywhere but at Clarke.

"What?" Clarke was thrown. With the way Lexa had acted, and the grounder culture, she'd assumed Lexa's family was already gone.

There was a long silence between them. The grating defensiveness had slid off of Clarke and it was too late to get it back. She could read the subtleties in Lexa's eyes and movements now, even with what she didn't say and do.

"She has an infection." Lexa sured back up from what little slack the confession had allowed. "As I said, it is none of your concern." She was about to start pressing about the war again, like none of this mattered.

But Clarke could tell it did. She hesitated at first, but the healer within her took over. "Let me see."

Lexa was surprised. An hour ago Clarke had a knife to her throat. Her voice remained steady, "There is nothing that can—"

"Take me to her."

" _Why_?" Something flashed through Lexa's eyes. "It isn't your problem, Klark."

Clarke didn't know why.

Maybe being a healer at all made failing to help an act of violence in itself, and she couldn't handle any more blood on her hands, however far removed. In the middle of war and heartache, with wolves at the gate, when you'd already lost everything else: she knew what it was like to think you were going to loose your mom. Her voice was tight but clear, "Maybe I just don't want anyone else to die if I can stop it."

* * *

 

 

"She does not know about the war," Lexa said over her shoulder at the door, "please do not change that. She deserves peace."

The woman was propped up in a comfortable bed of furs by the wall of the room they entered. She was younger than Clarke expected. Maybe even a decade younger than Abby, which was a little jarring. She looked like Lexa, only worn, older, scarred. Her hair dark and wild. A deep scar ran through her brow over an eye on one side of her face, but it somehow suited her. It looked like her skin was normally darker than Lexa's, but right now she was incredibly pale.

Clarke noticed the rags in the corner of the room were covered in dried blood. She moved forward but Lexa's hand shot out, unbridled, and firmly gripped her upper arm to stop her from getting closer.

_"Nyko, em ste klir?" (Is she safe?)_ Lexa addressed the healer who had opened the door to them. She still hadn't let go of Clarke's arm. He nodded.

Clarke noticed the thick leather straps by the woman's feet and wrists, as if to bind her down.

Lexa used the resolved tone that she summoned when attempting to keep things emotionless. Clarke wasn't sure if Lexa's defenses were wearing thin or if she was just better at reading her now. "The Mountain People took her years ago. She has been a reaper."

Clarke's lips slid open and she stared at Lexa blankly. Lexa had said it simply, not looking at her, but it threw Clarke's internal axis sideways and twisted her belly; the implications of it hung in the air and began to filter into her consciousness one by one with the speed at which she was able to process them:  _When Clarke came to her with a cure for Lincoln, Lexa's mother was a reaper—When Lexa went to the Mountain, her mother was in it._

_When Lexa took the truce for her people, her mother was one of them._

"I…thought they only did that to the men."

Nyko nodded. "Nanje caused problems in the bleeding chamber. They made an example of her."

Lexa moved quickly past Clarke, kneeled by her mother and touched her arm. _"Nomon?"_ _(Mom?)_ Her voice and touch were softer than Clarke had ever seen her with someone else, almost as if she and Nyko weren't in the room, her focus entirely on her mother as she spoke. Lexa seemed to know her voice was the only thing pulling her mom back into the world.

Her mother's eyes slowly flitted open, still hooded, over her rising and falling chest as she filtered back enough to register Lexa's presence. " _Leksa.._." Her fingers reached towards Lexa, her voice was a shallow, strained breath that was still half somewhere else. " _Ai gada..._ " ( _My girl…)_

Lexa slipped the cooling cloth off her forehead with a careful touch and swept around her temples, holding her hand as she dipped it in the bowl of fresh water by the bedside and wrung it. _"Skaiheda-de ai tel yu op ste hir. Em laik fisa. Teik em chek yu au." (The sky leader I told you about is here. She is a healer. Let her see you.)_

Her mother's eyes remained half open with difficulty in response, a barely present nod. She didn't seem capable of looking much further past Lexa.

Clarke stared at them as Lexa kneeled on the floor, a soft numbness and tension of sympathy turned in her gut at the implications of all this. "You didn't tell me they had your mother," she said quietly.

Lexa, still at her mother's side, wouldn't look at her. "I had to assume she was dead."

Clarke forced her mind back to solving things she could control. She looked at the straps again, there was a deep mark on the woman's wrist where she clung to Lexa. "She must be detoxed from the Red by now…?"

"She has been away a very long time," Nyko supplied. "The fever has taken her back before." Clarke was familiar with the look in his eyes. He believed it was time for her suffering to be ended, but was staying silent.

"What's causing the infection?" Clarke asked, nearing the bed to examine her better from afar.

"Her demon teeth," Nyko said. "It is rare, but this happens sometimes. She was unlucky. Was too long without medicine. We have already tried everything that we can."

"Her teeth?" Clarke asked blankly. She moved towards the bed. "What's her name?"

"Nanje," Lexa said, looking distant.

Clarke extended her hands to Nanje and hesitated midair, before she carefully reached forward and felt the lymph nodes in her neck. The one on the right was visibly swollen. Even before touching her forehead, her skin was so warm, Clarke could tell she was deep into a fever.

"Nanje…?" Clarke appealed to her, fishing into her own pockets. Nanje was so out of it, it didn't have much of an effect. "I need to see her teeth." Clarke fisted the small flashlight she kept on her for emergencies. She reached towards Nanje's mouth but Lexa grabbed her wrist.

Lexa looked up at Nyko and jerked her head. He complied, wrapping a cloth around his thumb and gently tugging Nanje's jaw open. Fortunately he wasn't met with any resistance. Clarke clicked the flashlight on and peered. The other two looked on, eyeing her apprehensively. Nyko pulled her jaw wide open and tilted her head back as Clarke craned to see anything.

The entire back of her upper gum and throat were swollen and inflamed. Clarke could see the recent spot in front of it, still plum-red and soft, where a back molar had been pulled, which probably accounted for the bloody rags in the corner of the room and the deep bruises around Nanje's wrists.

"What is that?" Clarke surveyed what looked like a yellow-brown paste clinging to patches of Nanje's gum.

"A resin," Nyko said. "Antibiotic."

Behind the pulled tooth the skin on her gum was angry, ruffled and red; it was barely visible but it was also septic. Her wisdom tooth was impacted. She was dying of an impacted wisdom tooth.

Clarke pulled back with a scowl, a queasy feeling settling in her gut. "My mom can fix this."

Can. She said _can_ instead of _could_. Clarke got a little more lightheaded. What was she doing? It was like she was acting on autopilot. Her _own_ mother was tortured and almost killed because of what Lexa did.

Lexa and Nyko both stared at her in question.

She nodded. "My mom can fix this. All she needs is antibiotics and a simple operation."

Lexa responded slowly, "We do not have either of those things." She straightened the hope out of her chest, her chin beginning to level again. Nyko was looking carefully between the two of them.

"That seaweed?" Clarke asked him. "You use it to treat infections."

"She has been taking that. It is not strong enough."

"Then give her more. Make it as concentrated as possible, _with_ an extraction of that resin, and try to get her to drink as much water as you can. Make sure it's been boiled." She turned back to Lexa. "We need to get her to Arkadia."

Lexa looked back at her for a moment. Clarke registered surprise somewhere under the cloak of her eyes but she wasn't sure what else. She wet her lips, pushing down a subtle swallow. "This is not what I need your help with."

"This is the only thing you are going to get my help with."

"Why?" _Why would you even try?_

"Because I'm not gonna let your mom _die_ from an impacted wisdom tooth!"

Lexa was silent

"I can fix this," Clarke said.

Lexa stifled her own words with a glance at her mother—she stalked away from the bed, gesturing for Clarke to follow her back out the door.

When Lexa looked at Clarke she straightened her back. Something similar to what had been there at Mount Weather filtered into her eyes, though it wasn't quite as intense as it had been there. "No." It was unbreeching and definitive.

Clarke shook her head in confusion. "What…?"

Lexa's voice was hard and cold, fortified by the sharpness of her chin, and mimicked in her stance. But her breath was tight. "We are at war," she said simply. "We do not have the time. Or the resources, to attempt something like that."

"But—"

"It is not a possibility." Lexa's voice was so stern and cold Clarke thought maybe she was commanding _herself_.

"This may not be common among your people, but it _is_ common among mine. It's a simple procedure my mom has probably done it a hundred times— _I_ might even be able to do it if I had to. But stronger antibiotics, she needs them _now._ If the infection reaches her brain…" Clarke sucked in a chafed breath. "Lexa. If we don't move her now, your mother is going to die."

Lexa swallowed. Still rigid with a gentle sheen in her eyes, though they were sharp and steady. "Then she must die."

Clarke stared at her for a long moment. When Lexa began to turn away she snapped out of it. "I—I have supplies. That I hid at different points in the woods, there _is_ a bag at one of them that has antibiotics, maybe…six or seven hours from here. With the herbs you have, that would be enough. I could be back by morning—I can save her."

Lexa's eyes softened, deliberating this. They bored into Clarke for a fleeting moment, as if Clarke were a light so bright she wouldn't have been able to look back at it any longer. She hardened again. "No."

"Wh.. _Why?_ "

"We are at war outside. It is too dangerous."

"I can _handle_ it, myself. You think i'm just looking for a way out of here, away from _you_ , send as many guards with me as you want."

"You are not to leave this compound."

"Why, because I'm your prisoner now?" Clarke spat.

"If that is what it comes to."

There were guards in the hall, and Clarke had to stifle the fury coursing through her teeth. "Your mom is—"

"I said _no._ " Lexa's eyes widened at her.

Aside Clarke's seething bitterness, she was even more sure that the bite in Lexa's words was for herself. But the cold, dominant authority there was still enough to send a chill over the nub of her neck and make her forget it.

"Do not force me to have you restrained. If you attempt to leave, you will be." Lexa turned abruptly and stalked away. Leaving Clarke staring at her, ready to punch a hole through a wall. The sharp eyes of the armed guards that were trained on her already acted as her chains.

 

* * *

 

An hour later Clarke left the room that served as her cage to pace the halls. She had too much pent up energy inside of her to stay put without loosing it and tearing the room apart, or doing something stupider, and she had to get it out.

She stalked in circles through the corridors. Her energy crackled through tightened muscles and into the ground with every step, her frustration taken out on door handles unfortunate enough to meet her touch. She clenched her hands at her side to keep herself from ambushing Lexa. She didn't have anything left to say to her, and that left little logical recourse.

It wasn't long before she ended up in front of the door to Nanje's room. She stopped in front of it and stared at the handle, her forehead almost touching the door. She would just check on Nanje again, to see if there was anything else she could do. She reached her hand out to the door nob and then froze, and pulled it away, shaking herself.

Just as Clarke was about to leave she heard a crash on the other side of the door.

Clarke wrenched the door open and barreled in. Before her, Nanje was clinging to a table on the far side of the room, half collapsed on the floor.

"Nanje—?" Clarke rushed over and grabbed her without thought, supporting her body and dragging her up. "What are you doing, you shouldn't be up…" Clarke struggled to keep her upright: for someone so small and feeble looking, she was surprisingly dense.

Nanje's breath was heavy, and she was hot to the touch, still grimacing as if pissed to be so incapacitated.

With difficulty, Clarke lead her back to the bed. Nanje was sweating and out of it enough that even laying down was a bit of a struggle. As she got settled, Clarke noticed she was only using one of her hands, the other still balled into a tight fist. She assumed at first it was balled against pain, but the way she was holding it was different.

Nanje searched absently to stuff her fist under something as she grimaced over the pain of settling her body.

Clarke reached out and pinned down Nanje's wrist, her eyes stony. Nanje gave her what resembled a glower. "What's in your hand." Clarke asked, hard and even.

"Medicine," Nanje said, softening, she opened her clasped hand. Her voice was rasp from lack of use and a swollen throat. "For pain."

Nanje allowed Clarke to pick up the vial and examine it. She unscrewed the cap, reaching it up to her nose to sniff it—

"NO," Nanje snapped, "do not touch that!"

Clarke froze. She knew the coloring, something about it, looked familiar. She scowled. "This is poison."

Nanje stared back at her, she didn't even blink to refute it. "I know about the war," she said. "My fight is over. Yours isn't, neither is Leksa's." She reached for the vial.

Clarke snatched her hand shut around it and backed away. "No…I'm not letting you do that..."

Nanje's weight fell back against the bed, her eyes shut. Under the strained breath she was focusing on, it almost sounded like there had been an aggravated sigh. "Klark," Nanje said crisply. Her voice was suddenly clearer and more definitive than Clarke would have expected.

It threw her, as she turned back to Nanje. "You know my name?"

"My daughter is in love with you. I know your name."

Clarke swallowed and stared at her, uncentered. "How do you know that?" She wished her voice hadn't been as feeble and close to cracking as it had been when she said it.

"Leksa told me. She did not think I was awake…" Nanje grimaced as she attempted to pull herself up on her elbows, which was a laborious affair, "so you may be sure it was genuine. Leksa is in a great deal of pain." She shuffled painfully on the bed with its offending components, ignoring Clarke's gaze. Like this was some kind of off-cuff conversation she was having through gritted teeth while multitasking on a battlefield.

"You shouldn't talk." Clarke wet her lips, attempting to stabilize herself. "Save your energy to talk to her…"

"She is different now," Nanje said, still not bothering to look directly at Clarke. "I thought it was the weight of the Command at first, but something deeper about her has changed."

"You...you were gone for a long time…"

Nanje grunted in annoyance, whether physically or at the conversation wasn't clear. "Costia is dead, isn't she?"

_Lexa hadn't told her?_ Clarke swallowed. "How did you..."

"If my daughter loves someone else, she is dead. Or something equally as drastic has changed."

Clarke nodded, hating the position she was in right now. "Azgeda took her. They tortured and executed her."

Nanje's head jerked up to look at her without pause for the first time, and something fierce and fearful descended over eyes.

"I think, Lexa blames herself..."

"Azgeda?" Over the heaving chest that Nanje seemed to be electing to ignore, her voice still cracked like a whip. She looked back away from Clarke into nothingness ahead of her. Her eyes flooded with vulnerability as she digested the news. A mixture of pain, anger, fear, and something putrid and blazing stirred around through the sheen in them and moved across her face. 

Clarke could see in the silence, that Nanje was accepting a major blow under the mask demanded of a Grounder—like maybe she'd just lost a child—angry about a fate that had already been dealt.

She looked like she was going to tear a mountain apart with her bare hands to stop it, but obviously couldn't because it was too late. "Costia was..." Her voice stuttered in anger and grief, unwilling to accept this. "Costia was not a warrior...She did not..."

"I'm sorry," Clarke said.

Nanje's face firmed up, swallowing the dire frustration that stuck behind the sheen in her eyes. "Every one of them must die," she said simply.

Clarke opened her mouth in question but nothing came out.

"That means she was dismembered and the army order to rape her until she was dead. I have seen it before."

Clarke blanched and gaped at her in horror, the world knocked on its access and her throat went dry.

"You are ignorant," Nanje said glancing at her absently. "That is dangerous. Leksa should have told you. That is what will be done to you if they catch you."

Clarke's heart was thundering in her ears, the world still unstable like a moving ship.

"It is what will be done to Leksa, and worse, if she looses this war—And publicly burned alive, if they can keep her awake that long."

She side eyed Clarke, not really looking at her. "We believe with such things before death, the spirit can be scared away from ever returning to the earth. Azgeda does these things. They will do _everything_ they can to make sure that happens with the Commander, in order to protect their power over the people. I will not let that happen to my daughter—"

She looked like she was preparing to wage a battle herself, though she was still just fighting with her own body to stay settled on her elbows. She reminded Clarke of Anya, only older.

"Keep your gun, and all of your bullets with you, fully loaded at all times." Nanje reached around with difficulty into her boot. "This building is large, and full of potential traitors to you from both sides. Hide as many weapons on your body as you can." She manifested a dagger that looked like it had been stollen from a medic and handed it to Clarke. "Trust no one. Except Leksa."

"Lexa left me to die. I _don't_ trust her."

"Fine. Un-important. This is bigger than your life. She is the only one here you can trust— _No_ one."

"Even you?"

"I am going to die tonight. I have no reason to lie to you. But, yes. If Azgeda were here right now, I would trade you to save even a portion of Leksa's fate in a second. Those most loyal to Leksa's command will also trade you to save her without blinking. She is the head of our nation. It dies without her."

"You suddenly seem much more lucid than you did before." Clarke's voice was monotonous and laced with heavy sarcasm.

"I am awake now."

"You aren't talking to her on purpose." This was good. This meant she wasn't as close to going systematically septic as Clarke had thought she'd been. She didn't imagine being bled, punished, and huddling, rabid, in the reaper tunnels for over two years, on nothing but human flesh, did much for the immune system.

"I am going to die. It is better she thinks sooner. My sickness is distracting her. And when I die tonight, I would prefer my daughter has already said goodbye to me. It is cruel enough I came back."

"She needs you right now."

"No. She is grown. She needs _you_."

Clarke took an unnerved breath at the statement. "You're not gonna die. I have the medicine you need. I can get it for you."

Nanje barely flinched at the information. "You cannot leave this compound."

"I'm the only one that knows where it is."

"You will _not_ risk yourself, leaving here, for my life." It was a command. She waved her hand at the side of the bed. "Water…" Clarke obliged the matriarch, handing her the glass that was on the side table. "When you leave, fetch me Gustus."

Clarke hesitated. Nanje looked up at her silence."Gustus is dead." The deep sadness that washed through Nanje's eyes when they darted away was visible. "He committed treason because he wanted to protect Lexa, and she had to execute him."

Nanje practically cleared her throat to stay down to business, turning back to the task of repositioning her body again. "Then fetch me Anya."

Clarke faltered. Nanje looked up at her more pointedly now, her mouth slowly parting open at the implication in Clarke;s shifty silence. Clarke simply gave a tight shake of her head and bowed her eyes. "My people shot her before they knew we were striking amnesty."

Nanje blinked, slow and hard, and looked at the ceiling. "Indra will do then."

"No…" Clarke said. "I'm not bringing someone in here to help you kill yourself."

"I am not the one who needs your protection. Leksa is."

"If you want to protect Lexa, stay alive and _help_ her."

" _I_ cannot help her. I cannot help you. I can only make things more difficult."

"You don't even know me…" Clarke shook her head, "why are you—"

"Who you are is not what matters."

"Then I'm pretty sure you're the only person who thinks that right now…"

"If they take you, Leksa will break. A person cannot handle being subjected to that experience twice. Your life _is_ Leksa's life."

Clarke stared at Nanje for a moment. "I thought love was weakness?"

"What fool did you learn that from?" Nanje spat. "Love is necessary, nothing more or less."

"Lexa. I learned that from Lexa."

"Foolish," she muttered, falling back against the bed and sealing her eyes shut again. "I understand…" She sighed. She sounded exhausted with life. "All of her good advisers are dead."

Clarke took the opportunity of Nanje's dreary silence to regain herself. "I didn't come here to pander to Lexa—I was brought here against my will. I am only helping you because I have too much blood on my hands—and I _can_. I don't know what you _think_ is going on, but Lexa is _not_ my ally—"

"Have you ever seen someone burned alive?" Nannie gave Clarke a pointed look that silenced her immediately. "Flesh burning from their body in front of their eyes. Like charred meat, the reason they don't take the eyes is so they can see it. Not just their body but the public they are shattering into something less than human in front of."

Clarke wet her lips again over dry words. "This isn't…this isn't my war," she said with difficulty.

Nanje's eyes flicked over hers, faux haughtiness in them that was purposefully meant to scare her. "They will use your body as a trophy. As I am sure they did to Costia. Do everything they can to it to try to break her. Everyone thinks they will be strong, they will not be broken—until there are hot coals being shoved inside of them."

Clarke had a difficult time keeping her eyes level and fixed on her.

Nanje turned her shoulder to Clarke, leaning back on the bed again. "Go bed my daughter while you're both still alive, Sky Person. Give me my poison."

Clarke's tongue darted out to wet a shaky lip. She changed the subject in an attempt to regain some semblance of control over her composure. "You know about my people?"

"I have eaten your friends," Nanje said, staring at the wall.

Clarke suppressed the wave of nausea that lapped inside her stomach. "That wasn't you," she said softly, "who did those things…"

"Then who?"

"The Red. You didn't have control over that. _They_ forced you into doing those things, that wasn't your fault…" The words pulled a primordial ball of wetness into her throat, and she felt shaken.

"I am dying. Save your counseling for the Commander."

"The _'Commander',_ is not…" She knew her countenance was feeble, triggered now by her own words. The conversation had left a sheen nagging at her eyes that stole away her ability to focus.

"It does not matter what your feelings are for Leksa," Nanje said sullenly. "You are at a turning point. Our people must come together. If they are not united now they will kill each other—both sides—death. It may take one-hundred years but it _will_ happen. And right now you might be able to stop that."

Something changed in Nanje at this point, as if she'd given up all pretenses. Her eyes were sad; tired and vulnerable. Clarke didn't know what Lexa's history with her mother was, but right now Nanje was looking at her as nothing more than a determined mother on her deathbed. "You…" she muttered distantly, "have a strong heart…"

She grabbed Clarke's hand.

_Oh no..._

"Promise me, you will help her. Promise me, and I will return to this world one day and save your life. And your people's. I keep my word. Let me die, protect her."

Clarke stared at Nanje, then at her hand, and back at the woman again.

_Oh NO._

"Please…" Nanje pleaded in a breath.

Clarke swallowed.

"Okay. I'll help Lexa. But I am not gonna help you die—And only if _you_ aren't going to do it either. You are _not_ dying tonight," Clarke said firmly. "Understood?" She glared back at Nanje, the expression in her eyes and edge in her voice as honed as a sword, to drill home the deal breaker. " _That_ is what's happening. Take it or leave it."

Nanje stared back at her defiantly for a moment. Then she relented, and let out a small ironic laugh. " _Wanheda…_ " she murmured in observance.

"I won't leave here, okay? I promise. But I can save you. Just let me try."

 

* * *

 

 

" _Bak op. Ai gaf chich Heda_ _op." (Move. I need to speak to the Commander.)_ Clarke was surprised this actually worked. Lexa must have told them she was permitted, because the guards parted out of her way without so much as a warning knock.

Inside the Commander's chambers, something was shattered across the floor like it had been flung there intentionally. When Clarke entered, Lexa leapt to her feet and turned her back. It wasn't fast enough to cover the fact she'd been curled in a ball on the floor against the wall, crying.

Clarke clamped down the parts of her heart inside of her that burned and cried out to Lexa.

"What is it, Klark?" Her voice was steady, clearing out the rasp that clung to it like sawdust. But she was still gathering herself together with her back to Clarke, and ignoring that it was obvious.

Clarke held herself together, keeping her eyes steady and unreadable, and her voice just as. "Your mom said you told her you're in love with me."

Lexa's head jerked around, disregard for the vestiges of tears still in her eyelashes.

Clarke stared steadily back at Lexa, her face unchanged. "Is that true?" she demanded. Lexa really _hadn't_ thought her mother was awake.

She wet her lips, her eyes changed and firmly set on Clarke's as she spoke, and her lip trembled a little. "Yes." She held Clarke's gaze. Her eyes were soft but resolved, as if the sentiment was genuine, but she already knew it wouldn't matter.

Clarke tamped her insides back down again, keeping her expression firm and unreadable. But for a moment, Clarke forgot what she'd come in here to say anyway. She was staring back into Lexa's eyes and she had completely forgotten about anything else in the world except for the faint pull in the pit of her stomach.

If Lexa's eyes hadn't darted away when she chewed the inside of her lip, Clarke would have stayed stuck there. She might have done something wanton and stupid.

Instead she cleared her throat.

"Your mother isn't as sick as you think she is right now. She knows about the war. She's acting like she's farther gone because she's planning on killing herself so you aren't distracted. I walked in on her trying to use poison. She promised me she would wait, but you mom is…strong willed. And…kind of intense." Lexa nodded. "I left guards with her."

"Thank you," Lexa said faintly.

"I promised Nanje I would help you." 

Lexa was quiet, her expression pliant and difficult to read as she studied Clarke. 

Clarke took a step forward. "She can still make it right now, but she doesn't have a lot of time. If she doesn't get better antibiotics the infection might go to her brain, or she'll go septic and her organs will start shutting down." She paused, not getting much of a reaction from Lexa. "I can save her. But I can't do it without that bag."

Lexa pushed subtly at her throat. "I will not permit you to leave."

_Lexa had been protecting her. Lexa was going to let her own mother die to protect her._ "I told Nanje about Costia. She told me what that means they did to her."

Lexa's jaw clenched, her eyes wide and absent. She looked like a trapped animal. There was a long pregnant silence, until she looked back up at Clarke, and they stared at each other.

Clarke's countenance broke. She finally said in a strained whisper, a constricted throat, "I would die before I let something like that happen to you." The formality melted out of both of them, Lexa in awe and surprise. Clarke's eyes watered. "Ever..."

Lexa's eyes glistened wide, hammering into hers.

Clarke stifled the urge in her body to run towards Lexa after the confession, and swallowed it down with her unshed tears. She walked across the room, in front of Lexa instead. Clarke was defiant. Stern. And Lexa may as well have been a doe. "I don't care what you think you need to do. You aren't my commander and I'm not just going to sit here and let someone I can actually save die."

Lexa's head turned helplessly back and forth, water at the rims of her eyes. Her face said everything about what she was going to do, at this point, to sabotage Clarke's decisions against her will. "If they catch you…" Her voice was like a different person's.

"I'm not leaving." Clarke stepped forward. And it was a war room. "Right now, we need to find someone fast and quiet who knows the woods extremely well. I can draw a map."

Lexa closed her eyes, and licked her lips to collect herself. "You won't leave?" her voice was low, almost a whisper.

"I won't." Clarke took another step towards her, and Lexa opened her eyes to Clarke's.

They regarded each other for a long while, until the person Clarke remembered—the one she'd accidentally grown attached to, who had slipped in, like beams of light through the cracks in their actions—was the one standing in front of her. She could feel her defenses slipping, the violence inside of her draining out wherever it found a fissure, and a shiver in her fingers dangling at her side.

"Klark…" Lexa whispered, her face broke into softness with her voice. She waved almost imperceptibly when the glamour of the empress's mask she wore snapped away from her. For the space between them and no one else. Her chest was strained from a kind of exertion that wasn't physical. "I'm sorry…" It was unscripted, an impulsive burble from her lips.

Clarke squeezed the trembling fingers of her hand by her side in and out of a fist. It felt as if there were an invisible string drawing her towards Lexa, _the Commander._ Her enemy.

And then it happened again.

"I'm sorry…" A breath, and Lexa wavered closer to her, drawn by the same invisible string. It was more of a press from her moistening eyes than anything else. She didn't seem to care in that moment about anything but that space between them, the things left unspoken. The appeal was for nothing but that sentiment alone; she wasn't looking for anything in return.

Lexa's shiny human eyes and the haunt of Nanje's warning broke Clarke. The graphic quality of the warning was enough to make the threat of Lexa's disappearance truly tangible and, against the will in Clarke's chest, it was more than unacceptable. It was the Lexa that Clarke got-by telling herself didn't truly exist. The shattered debris on the floor, and the gaze searing back at her, proved otherwise.

"I might hate you for what you did," Clarke choked. "But I can't loose you."

"Hate me. As long as you're sa—"

"Shutup…" Clarke seared her eyes shut with a scowl and shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't look at Lexa, and was trying to keep the tears in.

She moved forward against Lexa, still not looking at her, until their bodies were against one another. Lexa's shoulders slumped into the embrace and she leaned a little forward into Clarke. Her breath played out against the side of Clarke's ear. She didn't move her hands, she didn't pull Clarke forward: she stood there giving Clarke all of the control, until Clarke's eyes slammed shut and her chin moved into the crook of Lexa's neck. 

A long breath played across her skin, inhaling Clarke's scent and warmth.

Clarke let go of the tension in her body and tugged Lexa into her, clinging to the course fabric at her side. 

Arms wrapped around her, and a strained unsteady breath—that reeked of fear—filled her ears that was _only_ for her to hear, in the way it made Lexa human. 

Clarke buried her head in Lexa’s shoulder. 

Because they were going to tear Lexa apart if Polis didn’t hold, and Clarke’s people weren’t on her side. Her fingers trembled a little behind Lexa as they reached for the back of her head. Uninhibited strategies flickered desperately through the edges of her mind to fake Lexa’s death, to hide her—from her own people, from Clarke’s—from everyone. It wasn’t something you wanted to do for someone you hated.

She spoke with watery eyes over Lexa's shoulder, staring at the wall. "This doesn't mean I forgive you..." she slipped her trembling fingers into Lexa's hair, and leaned her head into Lexa's being, savoring the touch, the smell, the warmth: the release of the human contact between them only _desperately_ made her crave more. She sighed hopelessly into the tears in her eyes. "It just means I need you." Clarke closed her eyes and breathed out everything that was left, her being falling into Lexa's, which effortlessly drenched her cells.

She was terrified of what kind of levies would break open inside of her if she kissed her—and what they'd bring crashing down with them in the world outside. 

But she did it anyway.

 

 

** _ x_  **

_** (Odon)  ** _

 


	2. (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I decided to continue this. I got a little attached to Nanje too. Y’all asked for it…This will be a four part series of oneshots, broken appropriately into installments. I will put spoiler heavy content warnings on individual parts/chapters in the endnotes, which WILL become rather important. This is the first of two installments for Part II. Threw a lot of work into this one and I’m proud of it.**
> 
> **If you would like to get slightly more fucked up, listen to Winter by Mree, and Don’t Forget About Me by Cloves.**   
>  **CW: Sexual content.**   
>  **Enjoy.**

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 It was brought to my attention after posting this that AO3 has a series feature so I will be posting that way. This is a **redirect to Part II** for those of you subscribed to the original oneshot. A big thank you for all of the lovely feedback the inspired this continuation.

**[Go to PART II](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7212445/chapters/16366339) **

 

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